Feersum Endjinn

gga

That’s Iain M. Banks the sci-fi writer, not Iain Banks the modern
literary fiction writer. It’s actually the same guy, but he publishes
his sci-fi with the middle initial. I’m working my way randomly
through all of his sci-fi and I will probably try to read most of his
literary fiction as well. I’m yet to hit one, sci-fi or otherwise,
that I haven’t enjoyed.

A friend warned me just before starting that this one was a
little heavy going, due to the phoneticÂ pidgin. In the end, it wasn’t
that bad. Not as bad as Cloud Atlas, but personally I don’t
find pidgin that hard to read, others might so be warned.

Imagine a future where nothing goes particularly wrong for the Earth
and humanity. There is no apocalypse to be post-; technology keeps
advancing, absorbing more of the little things we need to do, gently
wrapping a comforting, protective blanket around everything.

Now, project that world and the people living in it forwards
several hundred thousand, or possibly million, years…

And then something does go wrong.

Feersum Endjinn was published in 1994: I’d say that
aspects of the Matrix’s depiction of the machine world inside the
machine are inspired by this book. Apparently, there is also some
question about whether this book is actually part of the world
of the Culture,
from some of Iain M. Banks’ other sci-fi novels, even though it isn’t
identified as one. It seems that this probably isn’t the case, due to
the back story surrounding Consider Phlebas, but this could be
read as a hypothetical explanation of how the Culture originally
formed.